Financial News profiles five executives who will shape the agenda for investment banking this year

Andrea Orcel - Chief executive, UBS investment bank

Although last year was a significant one for Orcel, with a remoulding of UBS’ investment bank, it will be in 2014 that the success – or otherwise – of that strategy will become clear.

The key test for the Swiss bank will be how far it can go in its desired areas of focus in equities and advisory while using its capital-light model, and to what extent Orcel is able to convince the senior rainmakers he wants to hire to join him.

The Italian banker wants to recruit more than two dozen investment banking heavyweights “with grey hair” to establish a top-tier advisory house.

Built on the legacy of the renowned advisory firm SG Warburg, the investment banking division at UBS made significant gains last year.

It climbed to seventh last year from eighth in 2012 in global equity capital markets volumes, and went from 10th to sixth in global mergers and acquisitions, according to Dealogic.

However, Orcel will be hoping to go further still, and will want to grow revenues to match the gains in volume.

Fan and co-head Rob Rankin have overseen 18 months of change in Deutsche Bank’s corporate banking and securities arm since taking the helm. However, the greatest challenge for the Canadian-born former credit trader Fan could still be to come.

Since the second quarter of last year, when Fan and Rankin took the reins at the division, staff numbers are down by more than 2,500, assets are down by $260 billion, and risk-weighted assets have been cut by close to 15%.

Nowhere has this change had more impact than in the markets division headed by Fan. The business, which has traditionally been the driver of the group’s profits, was buffeted by regulation and uncertain markets throughout 2013. Third-quarter revenues from debt sales and trading were the lowest since the fourth quarter of 2011.

For the first nine months of the year, debt sales and trading revenues were 24% lower than a year earlier, while sales and trading revenues across equity and debt were down 15%.

As one of the two European banks – along with Barclays – with ambitions of being a global flow monster, Fan’s challenge in 2014 will be to maintain Deutsche’s place at the top table in fixed income while managing the effects of the balance sheet-limiting leverage ratio.

Frenchman Bommensath has been in the role of co-chief executive of corporate and investment banking at Barclays for a little more than six months, but has already experienced his fair share of ups and downs.

Bommensath was elevated to co-chief executive of the corporate and investment bank in May alongside New York-based Tom King, following the departure of Rich Ricci. Just two months later, the business for which Bommensath is responsible – the markets business – posted a sharp decline in revenues, as progress in equities failed to offset falls in fixed income.

The UK bank posted a 22% year-on-year decline in second-quarter fixed income, currencies and commodities revenues, reporting its lowest quarterly revenues for the business since the fourth quarter of 2011. The following quarter, it reported a 44% year-on-year decline in third-quarter FICC revenues.

Like Colin Fan at Deutsche Bank, Bommensath is charged with ensuring Barclays continues to compete at the top of the fixed-income business, while managing the impact of the leverage ratio. Like his rival, he has a tough job on his hands.

-- This article originally appeared in the print edition of Financial News dated January 6, 2014